Lake Louise: Training run is tight at the top

Canada’s Jan Hudec topped Friday’s second downhill training run at Lake Louise, leading a tightly bunched field where the top 26 finishers were separated by less than 1 second.
    Hudec posted an official time of 1 minute, 42.72 seconds to nip Austria’s Klaus Kroell (1:42.80) and American Bode Miller (1:42.82). Didier Cuche, winner of Thursday’s opening training run, finished fourth

CANADA'S JAN HUDEC topped Friday’s second downhill training run at Lake Louise, leading a tightly bunched field where the top 26 finishers were separated by less than 1 second.
    Hudec posted an official time of 1 minute, 42.72 seconds to nip Austria’s Klaus Kroell (1:42.80) and American Bode Miller (1:42.82). Didier Cuche, winner of Thursday’s opening training run, finished fourth and Austria’s Michael Walchhofer was fifth.
    Miller led four U.S. racers in the top 15, with Steven Nyman seventh (1:43.08), Marco Sullivan 11th (1:43.17) and Scott Macartney 12th (1:43.20).
    T.J. Lanning was 25th, Kevin Francis 45th, Erik Fisher 50th and Bryon Friedman 66th to round out U.S. finishers. Andrew Weibrecht was a DNF.
    Saturday’s World Cup downhill is scheduled to begin at 11:30 local time at Lake Louise.
    Lanning and Francis will join Miller, Sullivan, Macartney and Fisher in tackling the opening downhill of the World Cup season after their performances Friday.
    The team had nailed down five of seven available starting positions, but the final two were up for grabs and speed coach Chris Brigham and head coach Phil McNichol decided to let the course help make the decision. Top places in Friday's run determined who would race Saturday.
    Lanning, coming from the 70th start during both of the training runs, had been disqualified for missing a gate in Thursday's run but finished 25th on Friday. Francis finished 59th Thursday and moved up to 45th Friday, starting from the 75th position.
    Left off the race squad will be Bryon Friedman after he was disqualified Thursday and finished 66th Friday and Andrew Weibrecht, who was listed in fifth Thursday before it was determined he missed a gate, and failed to get an official placing in either training run.
    All of the front guys on the team moved up from their Thursday placings. Bode Miller moved from 18th to third, Steve Nyman from 24th to seventh, Marco Sullivan advanced from 20th to 11th and Scott Macartney from 27th to 12.